


These Illusions

by Nevanna



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Mind Control, Series Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 12:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4020151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four minds that Dr. Fennhoff could have controlled, and one that he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Illusions

**Author's Note:**

> This story requires full knowledge of _Agent Carter_ 's first season and the first two _Captain America_ movies. As the tags and summary imply, the first four sections diverge slightly from events as we know them.

1.

Peggy lets Steve pull her back into his arms as another song begins. Bucky has stepped off the dance floor for another drink, and he toasts them from the sidelines. In the seat beside him, Dr. Erskine acknowledges his friends with a smile and a nod, and at a nearby table, the other Howling Commandos’ shouts and laughter have gotten more boisterous with each round. 

“What are you thinking about?” Peggy asks.

“How happy I am that everybody is safe.” Steve presses his lips to her hairline, inhaling the scent that he dreamed about when surrounded by mud and snow and blood. There’s nothing about this evening that he doesn’t want to bottle and keep forever: his friends’ faces; the sweet, familiar song about birds flying over the rainbow; the smooth, red fabric of Peggy’s dress and the warmth of her skin underneath. He’s convinced himself that he’d be tempting fate if he admitted it, but he’s also thinking about the future, and how much he wants to spend it with her.

“We’ll have to make sure that they _stay_ safe, then.” She smiles against his neck.

_“Captain Rogers, it’s time to come back.”_

“Peggy…” He sees her lips moving, but no sound comes out. Bucky, Erskine, and the others all seem to be fading before his eyes.

_“Focus on my voice, Captain.”_

Hovering near full consciousness, Steve feels reality settle over him once again. He understands that he, Bucky, and the rest of their regiment are thousands of miles from home, and that he and Peggy have a lot more fighting to do before they finally get their dance.

He recognizes the voice that coaxes him back out of his dream. He recalls falling into conversation with a Russian soldier, who told Steve that he had been a psychiatrist in his other life, and had a habitual need to try and understand people, particularly extraordinary people like Captain America. Steve was reminded somehow of Erskine, whose loss he now feels all over again; maybe that’s why he didn’t end the conversation there.

The last thing Steve remembers, from before he sank into the illusion, was the Russian doctor asking him what kind of future he imagined, after the war was over.

2.

The investigative team have taken a break in their debrief of Dr. Ivchenko, planning to reconvene after they’ve eaten. As Jack Thompson turns to follow the rest of the group, the doctor beckons him aside. “Might I have a word?”

“Sure. Got something else to tell us?”

“Not exactly,” Ivchenko says. “I owe you an apology. I was, I think, too forward with my questions during our flight. I did not mean to bring up painful memories of the war.”

“Good of you to apologize, but it’s not necessary,” Jack assures him. “I figure that most of us have painful memories of the war.”

“True enough,” Ivchenko concedes. “You are very astute, Agent Thompson.”

“Wouldn’t be of much use at my job otherwise.”

“And yet, as you said, even the best agents have to contend with their own demons.”

“Isn’t that what you do?” Jack asks. “Help people with their demons?”

“I do what I can,” Ivchenko says with a shrug. “It was not difficult to guess what yours might be. They never leave you alone, do they? You try to shut out their cries, and sometimes you almost succeed.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack says, but he’s pretty sure that he doesn’t sound too convincing. He’s even more certain that he’ll never forget the screams of the dying in Okinawa, or the reports from his own weapon. 

When he told Peggy Carter his story, the doctor was sound asleep… wasn’t he? Did Carter spill the beans? That’ll be the last time Jack trusts a girl with a secret that could… he doesn’t want to dwell on what it could do.

“The senseless deaths that you caused with your cowardice.” Ivchenko takes a step forward, his eyes never leaving Jack’s face. His voice is almost impossibly gentle. “The regret… the shame… the fear of how Chief Dooley and your colleagues would judge you if they knew that you are not the hero that you pretend to be. They would not understand.” He’s raised his left hand and is twisting his ring this way and that. “But _I_ understand you. I know how often you wonder what you would do, if you had a second chance.”

3.

By the time Angie’s shift has ended, her hands are blistered from carrying hot trays, her boss has yelled at her twice, and she grows queasy with worry every time she thinks about the two “federal agents” hauling Peggy out of the Griffith in handcuffs. She removes her uniform cap and stuffs it into her purse. She looks forward to someday removing it for the last time. On any other night, that thought would make her smile.

“Angie!” someone exclaims. She looks up to see Dottie Underwood waving at her gaily from beneath a streetlamp. “What a swell surprise!” She indicates her companion, an older fellow in a sharp coat and bow tie. “Dr. Ivchenko is an old friend of my family, and I’ve been showing him the sights.”

“Nice to meet you,” Angie mumbles, lifting her hand.

“The pleasure is mine,” Dr. Ivchenko says. He presses Angie’s hand between his own. “May I have the honor of escorting you ladies home?”

Dottie giggles and rolls her eyes, as if to say, _isn’t he embarrassing?_

The words “no, thanks” are on the tip of Angie’s tongue, but it’s not a long walk, and anything is better than spending it alone with her thoughts. “Sure, why not?”

“This is like no other city I have ever seen,” Ivchenko says as they walk. “Dorothy has been telling me about all the delightful friends that she has made here… including yourself and Miss Carter, of course.”

“Yeah, Peggy’s…” _In trouble,_ Angie thinks. “Pretty special,” she says aloud.

“You _silly_.” Dottie cuffs her lightly on the arm. “You say that like you’re _not_.”

“I wasn’t saying…” Angie trails off. “I mean, it’s kind of complicated.” 

“Friendship and jealousy usually are,” Ivchenko remarks. “I understand that you are an actress, Miss Martinelli?”

Angie indicates her uniform. “One can only hope.”

“One can hope, yes,” he agrees, “and one must. It is far too easy to let fear hold you back, isn’t it?”

His words needle at her. “Good thing I’m not afraid, then.”

“Maybe that’s enough,” Dottie cuts in. “Angie, I’m so sorry. He doesn’t mean any harm…”

“No, no, Dorothy. It is clear that I have upset your friend.”

“I’m not upset,” Angie says. “Trust me, I’ve heard plenty worse.”

“Still, it is not always easy to hear harsh words, is it?” Ivchenko asks her. “You yearn for recognition, for validation, from an audience… or from your family… or perhaps from a close friend.” He’s started fiddling with his ring, turning it back and forth… back and forth… and almost before Angie realizes that she’s staring, her head fills with a roar that might be applause. She feels suddenly dizzy. “You can be worthy of these things, I promise you, but you must focus on what you truly want.”

Headlights flare across Angie’s vision; she blinks, and they’ve become the glow of a spotlight. As she takes a bow, she sees Peggy sitting in the front row of the theater, beaming with pride…

…and then she’s back on the street corner, unsure of when they stopped walking, or why she hasn’t started again. Her limbs feel weighted down, as if she’s sinking into deliciously warm water. She barely notices that Dottie is staring with sparkling eyes, like a little girl at the circus.

“Let us discuss what you will do when you and Miss Carter see each other again,” Ivchenko all but croons. “Dorothy will give you a weapon, and…”

“Weapon?” Angie echoes. The word has sunk into her pool of comfort and calm like a thrown stone. “I can’t… I mean, I won’t…”

“ _Focus,_ my dear,” Ivchenko says, and suddenly it seems like too much of an effort for Angie to fight her way back to the surface. She’s so tired of worrying, and she knows somehow that if she listens to him, all her fear will vanish. She hears him murmur, “Good girl,” and she lets herself float away.

4.

Minutes ago, Colleen was saying good night to her flatmate and snuggling into bed. Now, her eyes are wide open and stare at nothing. A trickle of blood runs from an impossibly small hole in her forehead. 

“The intruders shot her within seconds of her waking up,” says a very familiar voice. Peggy turns around slowly. In the mirror, from behind her own reflection, Johann Fennhoff gives her a knowing smirk. “She never even had time to scream. What would you have done, if you had to choose again, between destroying Stark’s toy and saving your friend?” 

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Peggy says through clenched teeth. “It’s not going to work.”

“What makes you think that it is not already working?” He doesn’t give her a chance to respond. “You must always play the hero, is that not so, Agent Carter? You think yourself responsible for everybody, for who lives…” He glances behind them. “…and for who dies.”

Peggy tells herself that she’s not going to turn around again, she’s not, she’s _not_ … but when she finally does, she sees that the woman lying in bed with her curls spread on the pillow, dead eyes, and a hole in the center of her forehead, isn’t Colleen at all. 

Angie has taken her place.

Peggy chokes back a sob of grief, and whirls toward the mirror again, the words ripping from her throat. “I said, it’s _not_ going to work on me, you bastard!”

The flat that she used to share with Colleen dissolves. Peggy is alone in her bedroom, in the residence that Howard provided. The only reflection in the mirror is her own, and the only sounds are passing cars outside the window, the harsh rasp of her own breathing… and then a hammering at the door. “Peggy!” Angie calls. “Are you okay?”

Peggy opens the door, and Angie lowers the large, cast-iron frying pan that she’s hefted in one hand. “I heard you yelling,” she explains. “I thought someone had gotten in, and…”

“…that I was in trouble?” Peggy is relieved that her voice sounds almost normal. “Hence, the frying pan, I suppose?”

Angie is undeterred. “Best way to deal with an intruder. Pow! Right in the melon.” She peers over Peggy’s shoulder. “Looks like you’ve got things taken care of, though.”

“I thought I heard someone, is all,” Peggy tells her. “That is to say… I heard some _thing_. I’m afraid that it’s been a rather stressful week.” She wishes that the explanation were that simple, but she’s aware of far more frightening possibilities, and insanity is only the first of them. “Angie, I may have to go away for a few days.”

“Another completely secret mission to protect the city?”

Peggy attempts a smile. “Something like that.”

Angie looks skeptical. “There’s stress, and then there’s shouting at people who aren’t there,” she says. “If it was me, I’d think about seeing some kinda head-doctor.”

When Peggy was gathering background information on the man behind the “Ivchenko” alias, she learned enough about the reach of Fennhoff’s hypnotic abilities to wonder if she and her colleagues were truly as safe as they thought. If she’s right, her next mission may just involve protecting people from _herself_. Softly, she says, “I already am.”

5.

Bucky Barnes’ senses tell him that it’s Steve standing over him, that Steve is undoing his restraints and pulling him off the table, that Steve is wrapping an arm around his shoulders and saying, “C’mon, I don’t like this party. Let’s go home.”

Bucky knows that none of it is real, and so he struggles as hard as he can in his captors’ grasp.

He _wants_ it to be real, and so he knows that he won’t win.

“Be calm, Sergeant Barnes,” he hears Dr. Fennhoff say. “I have already promised that you can return to your old life. I will keep that promise… but you need to focus.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the usual suspects: Elle took the time to beta-read this story and did an amazing job of helping to make it better, and KatiaSwift provided a sounding board and tons of encouragement during the writing process. I am so very grateful to them both.


End file.
